"alt.cypherpunks" Newsgroup vs. Mailing List?

[aba@dcs.exeter.ac.uk]

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> Should there be an "alt.cypherpunks" type of newsgroup instead of this
> mailing list?

Not instead of, that would *kill it* with all the effects every one
has been quick to point out, things like more noise, cross posts, loss
of community like atmosphere.  Please don't anyone do that!

My 2nd post on the subject just before yours in my mbox, contains my
negative views on this idea.

I just thought it would be a good medium for a separate discussion
forum for Peter's proposed 'technology transfer', and public awareness
idea.  I am really not keen on combining the two, I think if it there
is a need for it, and it gets created at all, it should be as a
separate forum.

> It would be easy to create "alt.cypherpunks." I've been expecting to
> see it happen for the last 3 years. It could still happen. In fact,
> there's been talk of doing it (sorry for the passive "there has been
> talk," but I'll let the folks talking about doing it do the talking
> about it here).

Sure, alt groups are easy to create there was a series of them in our
spool with names from alt.-.-.-.-.0.0.0.0.0 through
alt.-.-.-.-.-9.9.9.9.9 or something like that till some admin cleaned
them up, or some one put out a cancel for them.

> [more on why cpunks should stay as it is]
> 
> In some sense, the Cypherpunks list is somewhere in-between a full
> newsgroup and a small working mailing list.

Couldn't agree more.  Keep cpunks the way it is.

> Second, would the benefits of wider exposure, as "alt.cypherpunks,"
> more than balance out the negative effects mentioned above?

Don't think it'd be worth destroying the cypherpunks list over,
alt.groups are great for censorship free discussion, (alt.security.pgp
and some of the other crypto groups have their good moments, and there
are quite a few people who frequent the a.s.pgp group acting as pgp
guru's anwsering questions systematically at the rate of half a dozen
a day or so it would seem.  It's gotten to the stage where a pgp
newcomer can post how do you blah fingerprint blah, and there will be
a whole bevy of regulars keen to help.  Probably is very useful for
PGP newbies.), so perhaps an alt.cypherpunks could develop this kind
of a use.  But some people view alt.* groups with disdain and don't
look at them, so it might depend on the intended audience.  Wider
audience might be achieved with a comp, or other big8 group.

I thought recently about writing a cpunk technology FAQ, even got
started with a list of what I wanted to include.  What I wanted to do
was to gather together pointers to all of the available technology
available, crypto libraries, disk encryptors, remailers, etc, in a
form which would be a useful quick reference, to know just what was
available, it can sometimes be tricky to find all of these things, as
you see people asking about disk encryptors in a.s.pgp, and about
remailers, etc

I just got finished with the contents list, when I came across by
browsing someone's cpunks page, Tatu Ylonen's 'International
Cryptography Pages', so I junked my 'table of contents only' FAQ at
that point because he had done it all, in comprehensive detail.  I
reckon perhaps WWW is a useful way to put across info, most of the
FAQs which get posted to newsgroups have a WWW home, or end up being
WWW only, and not posted at all, or pointer only.

I'm really impressed with Tatu's pages, take a look if you haven't
seen it as it's a really good cypherpunks technology resource guide,
the software packages section is likely very useful reading, and would
answer a lot of FAQ like questions for some people with security, and
privacy questions.  I reckon perhaps some of Peter's aims could be
furthered by posting Tatu's pointer as a FAQ to a few of the crypto
and security groups:

	http://www.cs.hut.fi/ssh/crypto/

> This brings up a final point, with more than 10,000 newsgroups,
> including nearly a dozen devoted to crypto, PGP, security, and
> anonymity, aren't there already enough? A likely effect of
> "alt.cypherpunks" is this:
>
> From: david@sternlight.com (David Sternlight)
> Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security.pgp,talk.politics.crypto,alt.cypherpunks

Yeah, that is a problem, all the security groups seem to get merged,
much to the annoyance of people on sci.crypt, and leading to the
creation of sci.crypt.research.

Also the point of there being lots of newsgroups already is
interesting because when you look at the crypto and privacy related
groups there are already a whole load of related ones.  It is just the
noise ratio on most of them is rather bad.

Perhaps a systematic posting of some useful FAQs and URLs would
generate a useful effect in terms of increasing use and awareness of
cryptographic solutions to security problems, and as privacy
preserving methods.  Larry Detweiler used to post the CRAM series,
some of the info disseminated was useful.  Perhaps a similar approach
could be taken, posting cypherpunks technology FAQs to relevant
groups.  MPJs getting PGP FAQ has lots of PGP info, something similar
or just the insistant, helpful reposting of Tatu's URL in places where
people ask about such info might be useful.

> But, if anyone wants it, create it. Then people can vote with their
> feet.  Both the list and the newsgroup can co-exist, and if the
> newsgroup "wins," the list can be dropped.

I for one would prefer to see it in a co-exist mode, with different
objectives.  I'll go away now, and let Peter continue, if he hasn't
been put off by the mixed responses.

Adam